There’s Nothing To Be Embarrassed About!

Well yes, actually, there is. Obviously I haven’t been watching enough television recently so this post may seem a little slow on the uptake, but when I tuned in to Embarrassing Bodies last Sunday evening, I couldn’t help but be taken aback by their main subject matter.

Eric Moger, 60, from Essex, lost the entire left side of his face during emergency surgery to remove a tumour. Now, having been left with a gaping hole where his features had once been for the past 4 and a half years, surgeons have used pioneering three-dimensional printing technology to finally create a prosthetic face for Mr. Moger. Eric, and his fiancée Karen Hunger, are, of course, completely over the moon, and his new face, and thus new confidence, means that Mr. Moger can finally restart his life.

So all’s well that ends well, right? Well, no. Once again, society seems to have ignored the underlying problem that programmes like Embarrassing Bodies have a tendency to bring to light: The question of why. Why has Mr Moger been made to suffer this severe facial disfigurement for almost five years? And why did he have to go on television in a last desperate attempt to receive help?

Underneath Mr Moger’s newly found happiness then, are some serious failings on the part of our National Health Service. In a society where it’s possible to receive a free breast reduction on the NHS to cure back pain, surely then someone should have stopped and questioned the effects that this kind of facial disfigurement would have upon the life of Mr Moger? The shocking reality, as Eric describes in an interview with the Daily Mail, is that after the surgery, he couldn’t eat, drink or even speak without holding his mouth in place, and often spent days in bed suffering from depression.

The most common reaction to the topic of Embarrassing Bodies is: ‘If you’re so embarrassed by it, why go on National Television and display it for the world to see?’ It would seem that our answer lies in the inadequacy of the NHS: the exceedingly red-faced patients of EB are there not out of choice, but as an absolute last resort. They are the people who have seen numerous doctors, been prescribed yet more Asprin and then been hastily ushered out the door again. And admittedly, Embarrassing Bodies does seem to be capable of offering up an immediate solution.

To conclude then, our National Health Service is currently demonstrating some serious flaws. With patients now casually being left with extreme facial disfigurements after surgery, is there any wonder that the number of complaints against hospitals and clinics rose by 36% last year – their highest level for 10 years? The worrying reality is that, no matter how we look at it, Doctor Christian is currently more capable of curing the UK’s ailments than our publicly funded National Health Service. He may appear smug (and rightly so), but I know who I’ll be turning to if I ever have a prolapse…